I like cooking. Trying new recipes and exotic ingredients is certainly fun. However, cooking is also a major chore. It’s not even so hard to find time to cook, but to figure out what to cook is often a challenge. I have my usual repertoire, which is not so small by the way, but with kids and all it’s just not easy to find time to look for new things. I mean, there are gazillion billion recipes online, but who knows which ones are good? Plus some of them are really time consuming or require some obscure ingredients which I never even heard of.

About a month ago we were watching an old “Shark Tank” episode, and there were two guys from “Plated”, who got me really interested in their business. Basically the premise is that one can subscribe to their services and get a weekly delivery of ingredients along with recipes to cook exciting and healthy meals at home.

Huh! I never knew such things existed. I went to check them online, and the price seemed a bit high to me ($12 per plate/portion). I decided to see if they have any competitors and found Blue Apron and Hello Fresh. Both were cheaper than Plated, so I decided to give Blue Apron a try based on some online reviews.

I’ve subscribed for the family (4 person) 2 meals a week plan, which cost $70 per week. I mean, if I were to shop for the ingredients myself, they’ll be a little cheaper, but I don’t mind paying a little extra for the service.

I’ve gotten two deliveries so far (so that’s 4 meals), plus cooked twice using their recipes with my own stuff. I have to say that I am very pleased with results.

First of all, taste wise everything came out really well. For example, Danya is not big fan of either quinoa or cooked salmon, but he said that quinoa and salmon salad was delicious, which made me so happy. I tried cooking polenta for the first time in my life, and everyone liked the taste. I tried using za’atar spice blend, and ended up ordering a spice online for use in other recipes.

I know that if I did not get those recipes picked for me (I can actually select 2 out of 4, but so far I have not changed Blue Apron’s selection), I would not have cooked them otherwise. Not now anyhow.

Another factor is cooking time. I don’t have that much spare time on my hands, so the faster, the better. So far, based on the six recipes that I’ve tried, I figured that it takes me 40-50 minutes per recipe, which is not bad at all.

The ingredients that I have received were good quality, but I have to say that while there is certainly enough meat for four people, they could improve on the vegetables side. There is no way that the amount of potatoes or green beans that I received would have been enough for four people. So I added my own vegetables on most occasions (more potatoes, more tomatoes, etc). At least, the recipes seem to be with seasonal stuff, so I usually have extras in my refrigerator anyhow.

Unfortunately for me, so far kids have eaten very little from the Blue Apron stuff that I cooked. I use leftovers for our lunches and have to figure out something else for the children. But it’s Ok. They try at least some of the stuff, and hopefully they will develop more taste for it as they grow older.

So to sum it up, I really like Blue Apron so far. It’s exciting to see each week’s selection or recipes and to taste what will come of them. I hope I won’t be disappointed in the future.

Alena! Sarah and I have been using Blue Apron for a couple of years now, and we both love it. It’s really not all that expensive compared to eating out, but it’s also really efficient since they send you the right portions for your meals without a ton of waste (exception to that noted below). Glad to hear that you’re liking it; I would have recommended it to you guys if it had occurred to me.

One warning: you will end up with sooo much extra garlic after being a subscriber for any amount of time. They will send you ALL THE GARLIC.

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Tatiana says:September 2, 2015 @ 14:35

We use tried all these services and so far love HelloFresh. You should try it too. Groupon has a special for first-time buyers

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Alёna says:September 3, 2015 @ 18:15

Geoff, Tanya, thank you for your comments!

I told Danya that services like these seem old news to many people.

As for garlic — good thing we love it. I usually use twice more than required amount, ha-ha.

I think we might try other services in the future, but for now I am quite content with Blue Apron and their selection of recipes. We only had to order take out twice in the last two weeks, which is not bad at all, all things considered.